


de flàner

by randomicicle



Category: Jpop, KAT-TUN (Band)
Genre: Gen, Rare Pairing, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-07
Updated: 2012-03-07
Packaged: 2017-11-05 11:40:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/405994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomicicle/pseuds/randomicicle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They met a year ago, at the Zurich Film Festival.</p>
            </blockquote>





	de flàner

**Author's Note:**

> **Written for:** [isolated-killer](http://isolated-killer.livejournal.com/), @ [Kame Rarepair Exchange 2012](http://capslock-turtle.livejournal.com/45159.html) (originally posted [here](http://capslock-turtle.livejournal.com/41963.html))
> 
> [_flâner_](http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/fl%C3%A2ner): The dictionary reads “ _se promener sans but précis_ ”; to wander aimlessly, without haste or goal. Basically, walking for the sake of walking; or, if you want, to walk the city in order to experience it.

Kame is not the type who would call. Actually, he likes traveling on his own; it’s part of the charm of a last minute time off; no planning, no schedule, no ties to eventual travel partners. And yet, somehow, he finds himself pushing that long distance number on his phone and snorts when it takes him too long to type a couple of words, blames it on the English they both struggle with. It doesn’t blink back. In fact, he forgets all about it until later that night, sprawled on his back, checking his itinerary once more to make sure the cab will make it to the airport, when his phone vibrates on the bedside table.

That is how, after some awkward laughter and a dialogue that is more one-sided for both of them than a two-way conversation, that Kame not only gets a nice restaurant recommendation, but also a ride from the airport. _Vacations_ , he hears, but the voice is laughing, so he doesn’t know what to think. He agrees to send him his flight details, and Kame bows before he catches himself because Louis can’t, in fact, see him.

He still remembers how Louis had bumped against him, apologized in his thick accent and made some comment on how rare it was to see someone lurking without really mingling. He’d also said his name was Phillipe, and Kame only found out it wasn’t after the film festival wrapped up and they exchanged emails over drinks and thoughts on how the movies could use subtitles.

"Well, if you don't speak German…" Louis trailed off, mockingly, but Kame snorted, and replied, "Neither do you," before they turned the corner of his hotel's street and he looked back at Louis, at the big drunken grin on his too dark face.

"You don't even speak good English," he’d said.

Kame had glared. Louis's lips curled up, surrounded by that twirl of smoke coming from his cigarette, the memory of it following them all the way to the very first awkwardly formal email in Kame’s inbox weeks after he was back from Zurich.

When Kame puts the phone down and sits on the bed again, he realizes. After eleven months of sporadic texts or email updates, and two polite birthday greetings, he shall meet in a foreign country a virtual stranger that wasn’t really so.

Most people would think him crazy.

_Beat that_ , Kame thinks, but he isn’t sure whom he is talking to.

 

+

  


  
_  
**Paris – Charles de Gaulle International Airport**   
_   


Kame doesn’t remember much of the flight, nor does he remember anything of his arrival apart from the wide metallic ceiling of the Charles de Gaulle Airport and the rush of tourists that is not as insane as he expects it to be, as it was the first time he was here. He recognizes him, in the mob of people crowding the international gate; Louis looks out of place, _bored_ , and Kame entertains the idea of accepting the ride and moving on, politely refusing further endeavors. _If_ , that is, Louis offered.

“Kazuya,” he calls when he spots him, a little loud, and definitely without the right intonation. There is a morbid satisfaction about Louis being so casual when using his given name, how he waits for him to get out and hugs him in greeting, and how Kame would freak out if it were someone else, he’s sure of that, but it just feels familiar and very strange right now. Louis says, “ _Salut_ ”, and Kame mumbles, “ _Ohayo_ ,” and that is an inside joke that doesn’t seem to die even in the real world.

They jump in a cab soon, with Kame’s lonely bag between them, and Louis jokes that he didn’t seem like a light traveler and yet, that’s all there is.

Kame flushes. “Flash trip,” he mumbles. “I still –”

It’s probably the way he’s moving his hands, the slight frown on his forehead when he struggles with the words that are there, that he _knows_ , but that won’t come out that make Louis chuckle and place a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t worry, I understand your atrocious English.”

When Kame pushes him for that and Louis laughs, the tense awkwardness in the cab breaks and the invisible delicate knots untangle. Kame sighs, smiling.

He doesn’t turn to Louis when the other asks, “Glad to be back?” but he nods, and pushes his glasses up. He wants to see the colors firsthand.

 

+

  


  
_  
**5th Arrondissement – Hotel Sorbonne**   
_   


“Would’ve expected a fancier hotel,” Louis comments once the girl disappears, staring at Kame with a bit of a smile, and his entire position gives away how hard he is trying to make small talk. There is not much small talk to make, so Kame shrugs and thanks her when he has the old style key in his hand, not a card key like he’s used to.

“It’s good though, the Sorbonne is just around the corner,” Louis continues.

Kame hums. “I read the food and lodging is cheaper around here.”

He doesn’t see it, but he can feel Louis’s smirk as they walk upstairs. “Cheaper, really? That was _your_ criteria?”

Kame laughs, because maybe it wasn’t, but he’d seen pictures of the neighborhood, searched for something both close to tourist areas and not so much so. He sometimes forgets it’s Louis he whines to when he tries to keep his cool in front of others, who sometimes would help him check for new brands of clothes or bags, since he lives in Paris and _knows_. It makes things easier; there are discussions he wouldn’t have with Koki. Or Nakamaru. Or, god forbid, his most recent baseball acquaintances.

The old staircase curls up all the way to a narrow rounded ceiling they don’t really see. The painted walls are chipped, white in spots where it should be dark maroon, and replaced on each story by a long narrow wall full of large windows with white frames. It is _exactly_ what Kame is looking for.

Louis notices.

“You really are a romantic, aren’t you?” and he gets away when Kame looks like he’ll fling his bag at him. “Still looking for a place?”

The room isn’t much, not a big thing, not luxurious, but he can see the rooftop of a tall building with a chimney up front, and there are balconies outside both glass panels, forming a corner on the far left side. His suitcase drops to the floor and he plops on the bed, ignoring the chuckle from Louis, who walks around and opens the curtains of the window right beside the bed.

“More tourists leaving,” he murmurs, and Kame only raises his head a bit to see him looking down at the balcony, waving at strangers. “You’re going against the flow,” Louis scolds, and Kame grunts a little, albeit amused. The flight wasn’t entirely pleasant, and his back is stiff against the fluffy mattress.

“I am,” he answers, and adds when Louis gives him a questioning look. “I’m still looking for a place too.”

For a week a year, maybe two; to have _somewhere_ he can come to and have the need to stop by a grocery store to get personal items because there are not tiny samples that are useless and bad waiting for him in the bathroom. Kame really wants that. “But you don’t have t-”

“ _Ferme-la_ ,” Louis sighs; Kame wonders if he should be offended. “Valeria is away anyway. She’s visiting her mom with her sister, so I have almost 10 days on my own with absolutely nothing booked…”

“Really?” Kame asks, rhetorically, but returns the smirk Louis is giving him. His resolution is not so slowly ebbing away; the offer _is_ very tempting.

“ _Really_.” The mattress sinks beside Kame, and Louis plants a hand quite strongly on his leg, resolve written all over his face. “You have to check out Paris with a local.”

Kame laughs, and what can he do, he won’t deny it sounds like fun _and_ time and money saving. He’s also really curious about spending time with Louis, face to face, for real.

“Great,” he mumbles, and Louis stands up because he’s _starving_ and won’t let Kame have a shower before dinner until Kame decidedly tells him there is no way he’ll go anywhere in his wrinkled travel clothes. Louis snorts, but reaches for the remote and gets distracted, telling him to hurry up.

“It’s almost dinner time.”

 

+

  


  
_  
**5th Arrondissement – Latin Quarter**   
_   


They walk along the Blvd. Saint Michel, which is packed with stores and boutiques that Louis explains used to be bookstores. Not that they all aren’t anymore, there are some survivors, one in particular that calls Kame’s attention before Louis pulls him away, saying it’s time for _food_ and there’s no point in rushing through a store when they can do it later at leisure.

They walk, side by side, almost in silence but not an uncomfortable one. There are paper stands everywhere, little kiosks with magazines and newspapers hanging all over. Narrow streets with even tinier cars, parked so close that Kame imagines there must be another way, a _different_ way, for cars to get out of their parking spaces because there is no room to maneuver at all. They pass by a metro entrance; the bright red sign with white letters seem familiar even though it’s not, it just connects with images in his head and projects like a dream that has never been.

Louis groans, but Kame takes his camera out anyway, even if it’s just the first day, and almost evening. The university area of the Sorbonne was really quite close, closer actually than the long detour Louis takes. It is nice, wandering, and Kame notices the city is quiet; or maybe it’s him feeling like this, as the city turns from yellow to purple and finally is just a dark road full of luminous spots on the sides.

“It’s not you,” Louis explains. “It’s the people coming back, and tourists leaving. Paris during the fall is perfect for meandering.”

“Meandering?” asks Kame as he enters the small bistro, takes a seat near the window with a low white and red pleated curtain on a golden rack. There is a couple passing by them, holding hands.

Louis grins. “Of course. Isn’t that what Paris is made for?”

He orders for them because the menu is in French and Kame is too busy watching.

 

+

  


  
_  
**6th Arrondissement – Café Les Deux Magots**   
_   


There is a tall dark metallic fence on their left; old bricked buildings on the right. They talk, watching the street and barely glancing at each other. Kame hadn’t quite expected it, when Louis had promised to drop by the next day. He wasn’t expecting to turn around as he was helping himself to some tea on the hotel’s breakfast table to find that the poking finger belonged to his friend.

“Come,” he’d said, tugged on his sleeve. “Let’s get real coffee.”

It is odd, how words don’t come out so fast, so easy, and yet throughout the last year it has been entirely too natural to exchange emails with long detailed tales of their lives, _irrelevant_ (and not so much so) tales of their everyday lives.

Kame recognizes the café because he had been browsing, yes, and also because he remembers vaguely Louis himself telling him how overpriced and overrated it was when Kame mentioned it, once, ages ago. He remembers those things from their conversations. Like how he learned Louis's family is kind of famous whereas Kame's family is wonderful in anonymity. He remembers telling him about his first secondhand baseball glove; of his niece and his nephew and how his mother had brightened up the first time he took her to the salon for a full day spa.

Louis had smiled over the phone because that had been told during a birthday call; he’d let him ramble as if international phone calls weren’t expensive. That is the kind of thing he associates him with; Louis is a mass of memories of chopped conversation and random thoughts, and not the real flesh and blood person asking the waiter for a table outside (if that is what he is actually saying, judging from where his fingers are pointing).

"I watched the _Dreamers_ ," Kame mumbles, over his cup of coffee once it gets there, and it’s ridiculously tiny.

Louis raises an eyebrow. "Really?"

Kame nods. "Watched that other one too, about you and… your mom. _His_ mom."

Louis laughs, more like a sneer, and probably because of Kame's failed attempt at covering up when he darts his eyes down to the floor. “Have you stalked me all this year?”

The teasing tone turns the embarrassment into something more comfortable; it makes Kame smile. “Of course,” he responds, arching an eyebrow. “Had to make sure you weren’t Phillipe, the mythomaniac.”

“Huh… hard word.”

Louis laughs when Kame snorts at him, and he remembers. Kame wants to say the coffee _is_ overrated, but just a little bit. It is still better than most he’d had; it still doesn’t beat tea. Or water.

"Do you have any normal ones?" he asks, bites into one of the biscuits and _those_ aren’t overrated at all. There are two old ladies beside them, speaking fast French, and Louis turns to them briefly, laughs under his breath. Kame truly doesn’t want to know.

“I tried to watch your things,” Louis confesses, and he’s looking out towards the street. “You know, just to know? I couldn’t.”

Kame wants to feel offended. “French movies are overrated,” he says, and is too casually dismissive to be natural. “Just like this coffee.”

This time, Louis really laughs. And promises to make it up to him.

 

+

 

"I watched Love Songs too," Kame says after almost half an hour of idle chat, setting his empty cup back. “With a friend. She enjoyed it.”

Louis smiles.

"I liked it better too," Kame adds, somewhat distractedly.

"You probably didn’t really watch it," Louis replies, looking sheepish for the first time, and Kame smirks. “You can stop making me feel bad now,” but his smile is similar to Kame’s as he orders more biscuits.

 

+

  


  
_  
**6th Arrondissement – St. Germain-des-Pres**   
_   


St. Germain-des-Pres fits Kame like a glove. Language barriers, if they exist, seem to disappear from the very first store Kame enters. There is something fabulous and worldwide about the easy way in which a simple point of the finger and an enthusiastic smile can do more than half-spoken sentences and sign language ever could.

“Do you always buy this much?” Louis asks, staring with amusement at the third pair of sunglasses Kame is trying on. “I could’ve gone with Valeria if I wanted to go shopping.”

Kame glares, but he leaves the sunglasses on top of the counter. The girl on the other side glowers at Louis.

“Since I’m here…” Kame trails off, and he looks back, a little forlornly, when the bell on top of the door clinks.

Out in the street, it is clear Kame wants to walk inside every store, from the colorful ones to the really discreet, but Louis explains in a somewhat conspiratorial tone how it’s all about window shopping. Kame raises an eyebrow, but plays along; he takes pictures of the showcases and stares for too long at an antique telephone that would only clutter his apartment and clash horribly with the rest of his decoration.

Kame ends up buying much less than he expects. He doesn’t bargain when buying shirts from a particularly enthusiastic old lady, who seems charmed by Kame’s half spoken English, but Louis just needs to prod a little to get a discount and free trinkets. Kame, however, is more excited over the tiny chandeliers and already picturing a place to put them in his bathroom.

The day is a typical October day, with a slight glimpse of sunlight filtering through the gray clouds. For Kame, Paris is all colors, even dulled down as they are today. The trees have no leaves on their branches and it looks kind of black and white. Kame knows it'll be different in summer. Louis tells him Paris isn't all that full of colors, really.

He takes off his jacket, and Kame’s hair gets ruffled when he pulls his sunglasses back down. They climb some stairs full of dry leaves, and people pass by them without looking. Everything is old and rusty, like the telephone that keeps popping into Kame’s mind, even when there are more trees, all around them, and they are in the middle of a huge park they’ve inadvertantly walked into. Even the sky looks lilac; Kame would’ve expected it to be gray.

“It’ll rain,” Louis says.

And just like that, they find themselves running so they don’t get soaked by its suddenness.

 

+  


  


  


“Here,” Kame tosses him a shirt, still dripping a little and mostly out of breath.

Louis grabs it, but doesn’t turn completely. Instead, he beckons Kame with a wave of the hand. “Look,” he calls, and Kame frowns, stepping closer to the window he’s looking through, the one with the tall building and the chimney up front.

“Paris likes you,” Louis says, and he feels his own grin unwavering.

That is the closest rainbow Kame has ever seen.

 

+

 

They buy wine downstairs, in the tiny store at the entrance of the hotel, before Kame even invited him to stay; Louis seems to assume a lot and most of the time, he’s right. The evening is turning damp and humid, but remains decently warm, and Kame doesn’t really want to end the day yet, not when he’s feeling like this. When he laughs under his breath, Louis doesn’t ask. His expression says he may be thinking the same.

Inside the room, it is warm enough to lounge on the bed with both windows open. The wind crosses from side to side, making the very thin curtains waver. For Kame, it tastes like old pocket watches and red, red wine; for Louis, there is a taste of ashes in it.

"An indie movie," Kame says, just when Louis pours him another glass, and interrupts his tale of the girl in the metro who got her heels stuck in one of the steps. "A villain… or a really complicated character. See if I can."

Louis nods. The glass twirls in his fingers. "Someone like Theo?" he asks, and the question makes him grin lopsidedly.

Kame scrunches up his nose; Theo isn’t exactly the complex character he’s going for.

"He’s not a bad guy," he tries the diplomatic way out.

"Isn't he?"

Louis gets attacked by a sock-covered foot on his face.

"Well, there are _no_ complicated bad guys," Louis laughs, once Kame has gone boneless again and lies still at the foot of the bed. He instead squirms in the armchair, curls a leg under the other and leans back on the tall table beside him. "The moment they get complex, they stop being good or bad."

Sounds logical.

" I want to play a regular guy," Louis comments, presses a spot on Kame's leg where it dangles off the bed. Kame snorts, deeply amused, and turns to look at him with a raised eyebrow. All things considered, a regular guy doesn’t fit Louis; no more than a youth involved in an incestuous relationship fits Kame. "Just a regular good guy."

Kame laughs. And even though Louis smirks, he still insists it’d be fun for once, and that Kame should not remember only _those_ movies, but Kame isn’t listening at all. He just extends a hand, and waits for a refill.

 

+

  


  
_  
**1st Arrondissement – Ile de la Cite**  
_  


When reception calls to tell Kame there is a _Monsieur_ Garrel waiting for him downstairs, Kame groans and rolls out of bed. He asks if they can let him come up; the receptionist seems like she wants to say no, but agrees anyway. The empty bottles of wine are mockingly set on the dresser and he glares at them for causing this horrible headache.

“ _Bonjour?_ ,” comes the teasing greeting from the door, and Kame waves a hand from the bathroom only to get a muffled chuckle. “Hangover?”

Louis laughs when Kame half grunts a response, and tells him he’ll have a shower.

The TV fills the room with fast words he can’t understand. Louis doesn’t even pay him any attention after he decidedly gives him a mocking lopsided grin. Kame is sure to check his face again, and is too tired to either shave or dry his hair. “It’s kind of cold, better grab a jacket,” Louis points out when Kame only throws a shirt on.

He plops himself in the bed, his feet beside Louis’s hips.

“You honestly have nothing else to do?” Kame asks, closing his eyes, expecting that to stop the pounding.

Louis sighs, but smiles when Kame accepts the pills he passes him. “Do you always have to worry about everything?” he asks, and ignores Kame in favor of the TV. Kame wants to say the line between selfless and selfish is very thin, but he doesn’t really feel like talking.

“Are we staying in then?” Louis asks after a few minutes, amused.

“You woke me up,” Kame mumbles, turns on his side and hugs a pillow. His clothes will get wrinkled, but the pillow against his head dulls the throbbing. “Just watch TV for a while.”

He feels the mattress shift as Louis props himself against the headboard, changing channels because the commercials are too long. Kame isn’t really paying attention, not even looking, and he dozes off for a bit.

The sharp smell of _food_ wakes him up. He rubs his eyes, discreetly wipes the side of his mouth in case he’d been drooling. Louis turns to the bed with two bottles of what looks like orange juice and a paper bag that smells delicious.

“You’re up,” Louis grins when Kame props himself up. “Thought this may help,” he comments offhandedly, opening the cap of his bottle. “Save the orange juice for later.”

The croissant is still hot when Kame grabs it, and his stomach stops making flip-flops, even if he’s eating lying on his belly and his neck aches a little. It’s _good_ , and he is thankful that Louis ordered more than just one for each of them because he is _starving_.

“ _A_. It’s _A_!” Louis says. There’s a quiz show on TV, and even though Kame has no idea what they’re saying, he mumbles, “It’s _C_.” Louis snorts, kicks his feet. They laugh. Kame is, surprisingly, right half the time.

When the clock on the wall gets dangerously close to noon, Kame is not feeling like he’d be sick anymore and Louis makes an innocent comment on how there’s a tiny bit of sunlight outside, despite the cold.

That’s their cue.

 

+

 

They cross the Pont Neuf and walk along the left bank of the Seine, passing long rows of booksellers. Their merchandise consists basically of used and antiquarian books, and most are far more interesting than actually buyable. Kame takes pictures, tons of them, and gets one of the bouquinistes to grin back at the camera, but refuses when Louis says he should take a picture _with_ the old man. It’s amusing; he had thought the French didn’t like tourists.

“Wrong,” Louis says. “We like _some_ tourists.”

He’s smug, and Kame wants to tell him France isn’t all that amazing for him to be so, but he doesn’t. Instead, he stops. Notre Dame is fabulously outlined beside Louis’s right shoulder. “Try not to take a picture every single step we take,” he sighs when he notices.

Kame only takes one.

“I’m not really fond of Notre Dame,” he explains when Louis asks.

“Is that because -?”

Kame clears his throat. “Prettiest woman you’ve worked with?”

"Valeria, of course,” Louis replies immediately, but looks at him accusingly for the change of subject. Kame ignores him; they dedicated an entire week to this, and he still remembers dreading those emails because Louis was right and he hadn’t moved on yet, back then. “Monica Bellucci comes second. Perhaps Eva too. Eva Green?" Louis adds, like an afterthought. "You?"

Kame doesn’t really care. "… not sure. They all were?"

Louis snorts. "Coward."

He smirks. Kame knows Louis is talking about something else.

They cross another bridge, the next one in sight and the Ile de la Cite is not so far now; Kame can’t tell whether they’re already on Ile St. Louis or not. He looks down at the Seine, the stony bridge they’re standing on, not caring at all they are the only pedestrians there because it is kind of cold to walk by the river. Louis is beside him, and he can feel both of them melting into the landscape, as old and nostalgic as the city itself. There is something about grey days.

The wind threatens to take his scarf when he turns, elbows resting on the balustrade.

“Do you believe in soulmates?” Kame asks.

And doesn’t expect Louis's exasperated roll of eyes and his hand tugging on his wrist. “What?” he asks, a bit amused, a little loud. “It’s just a question!”

“She isn’t your soulmate, we’ve already –“

“Not _her_.”

Louis stops. Kame feels self conscious under his curiosity, but they’re not on the bridge anymore. They’re past that, right by the Seine, and he thinks of past holidays, of the places he went before and the places he didn’t, of new memories he wants to make of both. How Louis can always be here, and all the memories this city stores for him and yet he doesn’t care. He thinks of soulmates, and dreams, and nightmares. He pulls a smile; it’s soft, and it puzzles Louis.

"Are you afraid of getting old?" he asks, and resumes their walking, this time on the right bank of the Seine. Louis follows him, falls into step, hands deep in his pockets.

He shakes his head no.

Kame nods. "I am," he confesses. "But not of aging."

Louis isn’t sure he gets it.

 

+

 

They reach a huge flower market, and Louis mutters near his ear this is the biggest in Paris. Kame likes it; the whole scenery is saturated shades of green and yellow and bright, bright red. “Straight out of a Renoir,” Louis whispers when he spots his fascinated stare, and Kame imagines they must be vibrant and colorful and maybe he should check out those paintings.

The day is not as cold anymore, just a little, enough to tug his jacket closer. There are tiny pots everywhere, very similar to the ones on the windowsills of the hotel, with bright violet flowers that are wilting away under the force of autumn.

“I’m freezing,” Louis finally mutters, when Kame is bent over a particularly interesting set of flowers, and the lady selling doesn’t know English so it’s impossible to understand whatever she’s yelling. “Come.”

They sit in a small café near the market, just across a pebbled street, but it’s inside and Louis can finally warm his hands. Kame doesn’t even feel that cold, and remembers Louis is the type to be cold in the mildest temperatures. They order hurriedly, and he snickers. “We’ll live off croissants and caffeine?”

“Shut up,” Louis frowns, and Kame smirks some more just because he can, feels bold enough to order for them both (and finds he has to point at the menu when he does; _that_ has Louis smirking in the end).

“So, you’re not over it yet?”

Kame rolls his eyes. “Please,” he mutters.

“You’re avoiding a church -”

“ _Louis_ ,” Kame snaps. It’s probably the first time he’d said his name out loud and Louis laughs, says he didn’t say it right, and Kame tells him he can’t pronounce his name correctly either. “What I meant was,” he continues, after they’d agreed they’d never get each other’s names right, “ _love_ , as in… something that lasts forever. Do you believe in that?”

Their coffees arrive. They’re black and tiny, and neither Louis nor him touches the milk or the sugar.

“Something that makes the most… common things have some meaning.”

Louis doesn’t think love does that. But Kame tells him how _good_ it made him feel, how it was wonderful to wake up and share a cup of coffee, read together the paper while still wrapped in blankets, and laugh when poked by relentless toes under the table. Louis thinks he idealizes everything and tells him so. Kame asks him how can he get out of bed if he doesn’t.

“Point taken,” Louis admits. “I just don’t idealize romance. I have other motivations.”

Kame snorts. “Me too. But we’re talking about romance.”

Louis chuckles defeated, and Kame smirks.

“I thought you didn’t have time for romance anyway,” Louis comments, asking for the check with a movement of his hand.

“I don’t,” Kame sighs. “Doesn’t mean I’ve become a cynic.”

Louis arches an eyebrow. “Valeria –”

“Oh, I know,” Kame sighs, and dismisses him. He falls silent, and grabs the check when it gets there. After fumbling with their cash, they decide Louis will get this, and Kame will get lunch, and the extra will go for dinner. They can always use the change for the metro.

“I have these dreams,” Kame mutters when the waiter picks up the check. He hesitates; hasn’t told Louis this before. Or anyone, for that matter. “This person keeps passing by, again and again. Is that odd?”

Louis frowns. They’re back in the street and even though it’s not so cold anymore, Kame pushes his hands as deep inside his jacket as he can. He wishes he could put his aviators back on. Instead, he just looks out to the other side of the street; there’s a man with a cane and a funny hat.

“Can’t you stop this person?”

The question comes with sincere concern; it makes him duck his head, try to remember. Louis bumps against him when the silence stretches for too long. “I’ve tried.”

“Try harder?”

Kame laughs, sharp and cold. “He stopped once,” he says bitterly, turns to Louis. “It was worse.”

He gets a nod, and a hand on the shoulder. Then they’re walking through the flower market again, and Kame shakes his head, pulls a grin out of the indefatigable buzzing of the sellers around him. He can feel Louis’s eyes on him, dark and hooded, so he grabs a random pot with yellow and orange flowers, and buys it even when Louis seems confused and alarmed and reminds him he’s on a _flash trip_.

At least he’s not pondering his words anymore.

 

+

  


  
**  
_8th Arrondissement – The Splurge_  
**  


“You look like a tourist.”

Kame wants to scowl, but Louis is telling the truth. He puts away his map, and his notes, and just follows him, baguette in hand because hunger has finally caught up with them but it is too late for lunch and too early for dinner. Whenever they stop at restaurants, at paper stands, they all speak French and Kame just stares and follow their lips, the way they talk, even if he doesn’t get a single word. He has learned some words though. He knows _metro_ and _toilette_ and _café_ … and that is pretty much it. They take pictures of Le Petit Palais, and Louis asks Kame why he takes interest in the most random places. Kame shrugs.

The truth is, after being in Paris for a couple of days, large monuments start looking all the same. Kame prefers the parks, the fountains in the middle of them, and the narrow streets far from these places where they have to jump to the road to let huge groups of tourists pass. They rush through the square in front of the Louvre, where they buy chocolate-filled croissants from a random vendor that actually taste better than the ones from the Café Les Deux Magots, and avoid the Champs-Elysees for now, which pleases them both.

“If today was our last day, what would you tell me?” Louis asks as they walk through the Tuileries Gardens. Kame is too caught up looking around, at the people that still brave the cold of that day and walk, hand in hand; the groups of tourists. The family of three asking a student to take a picture of them with the large metallic head lying sideways on the ground. Louis’s voice is almost lost.

“What’d we be talking about, what would you tell me?”

Kame ponders, he isn’t sure. “I’d… talk less about everything, probably. More about us?”

The expression on Louis’s face is somewhat pleased. “Let’s talk about each other then.”

He isn’t sure he made sense; it seems like he did. They don’t talk much though, just keep walking, throw the wrappers of their sandwiches away and find a bench in front of a fountain. Louis sighs when Kame joins him after several clicks and it’s good that Kame looks like a tourist because, otherwise, he would look like a stalker.

When Kame sits, Louis leans over, whispers on his ear. "You know, sometimes, if you don't hide stuff, nobody notices."

Kame asks him how he knows that.

"I heard it in a movie."

They snicker, and Louis points to a fat man in his 30s on the other side of the fountain. He’s eating an ice cream, and it’s sideways off the cone, ready to drop to the floor with a huge splat. Kame tells him to grow up, but still laughs uncontrollably when it hits the ground. He’s still shaking, cheeks puffed up when Louis stands up, his face triumphant and conceited.

"They say French guys are insufferable," Kame comments offhandedly when he calms down, as he adjusts his bag on his shoulder. He’s still grinning though, even if he isn’t looking.

"Am I?"

Kame nods. Louis’s laughter follows them till they reach the Seine again.

 

+

 

It looks as if it has rained; the stone floor shines brightly and the whole square glows a bit green. It’s the first time Kame is here at nightfall, and he is a little in love with it, with the yellowish hue the lampposts project. They’re walking back to his hotel because Louis is shivering and he says they _must_. Then, he gives his camera back. “Otherwise, you’ll have no pictures of yourself,” he says, and shushes Kame’s arguments when he rushes to a small cart selling pastries.

They pass the Sorbonne and are soon very close. It’s quiet, which is odd, since it’s the Latin Quarter and he’d expect more of a nightlife. His feet hurt, and he’s tired. Maybe tomorrow he’ll accept Louis’s suggestion of riding the metro, even though he really loves walking around Paris.

“Want to have dinner at my place tomorrow?” Louis asks when they reach the steps. He quickly adds, “We didn’t really talk about us today.”

“It’s not our _last_ day,” Kame reasons, but nods nonetheless. He makes a mental note to buy something that is not wine when he notices Louis is following him inside the lobby, and after some hesitation, he just sighs and climbs the stairs.

Once in his room, Louis smirks.

“Get a coat, it’s going to be freezing.”

 

+  


  


  
They ride a boat down the Seine. It’s not just a boat, but a tourist ferry. Kame had refused at first, said he wouldn’t put on his shoes again and that his feet were killing him; he wanted to _sleep_. “Sleep is a sad activity… you’ll be all alone! Come on, at least we’ll do this together,” Louis had said while tugging on his wrist, and Kame had laughed, asked why he was acting drunk, but ended up giving in only after he made him promise they’ll take a cab to wherever the ferries departed.

Kame never forgets the heavy rain soaking him cold to his bones.

He never forgets Louis’s laughter either. Or how he ends up trying to share his coat, and all they manage is to both get soaked because all it covers is the camera and their bags.

All of Kame’s pictures of that night are dully black.

 

+

 

“I don’t like baseball.”

Kame chokes back a hurt gasp, sits on the bed as fast as he can and looks at him horrified. He pretends to shoot Louis just because there’s shooting on the TV, an old black and white movie rerun after midnight, and Louis falls back onto the floor. Kame laughs. And laughs. And laughs until Louis is half propped on the bed, having the longest agony ever before dying, _finally_ , when Kame has tears in his eyes and has fallen back on the bed, curled up in a lame bundle of hilarity.

When Louis gets up on the bed, chuckling a little, he points to the dresser and to the empty bottles on it. “We’ll need to get more for tomorrow,” he mumbles.

Kame nods.

Never mind the room is for one person. Louis still spends the night.

 

+  


  


  
_  
**11th & 12th Arrondissement – Bastille & Bercy Village**  
_  


“One thing I love about Paris is the parks. The trees. They’re everywhere. And the roads.”

Louis snorts. “Paris is old,” he says; his hand bumps against the metallic fence on his left side. His fingertips will probably be dusty afterwards, and Kame almost tells him not to do that, but he notices how he _has_ to grab the poles when they’re about to turn a corner, and maybe Paris is a city that just needs to be _touched_.

“Tokyo must feel new. Like fresh air...” Kame snorts. Louis glares, and tells him he isn’t being literal. “Paris is just full of memories, the kind that don’t go away.”

He says that as if it’s a negative thing. Kame comes to a halt, the lights are telling the pedestrians to stop while the cars advance. Louis takes his scarf off and wrestles it inside his bag.

“Tokyo is full of _my_ memories,” Kame says.

Louis grins, lopsided, but says nothing. They arrive at the Tuileries station and walk down the stairs to the metro. It seems to be colder down there; maybe it’s the tiles that cover it all. When Louis offers to buy his ticket, Kame arches an amused eyebrow and pushes him aside. There is a couple fighting on the other side of the rails when they’re finally waiting for their carriage.

“Don’t make eye contact,” Louis whispers. Kame doesn’t need to be told because he is used to not making eye contact. He still pushes his sunglasses up again.

The French voice in the speakers signals the next stop, and Kame jumps out of the carriage as soon as he can. It’s nowhere near as crowded as Tokyo’s subway though, so he moves at ease. There is an old lady in this station, singing, and even if she doesn't sound like Edith Piaf at all, Kame is charmed and drops some coins, smiles at her when she nods and smiles back. Louis snorts.

“Are you charming beggars now?” he asks when he’s certain they’re out of her hearing range. When Kame glares, he adds, “I’m just against giving them money.”

Kame rolls his eyes, but ignores it. They’re out on Bercy Park, or so the sign indicates, and Louis says they could head over _somewhere_ for some wine tasting (he actually says the name, but Kame can’t catch it). In all honesty, even Louis looks a bit relieved when Kame declines and says he’d rather have a proper lunch. “It’ll be a first,” he grins, and Louis knows the perfect place.

Of course, Paris will always have fancy restaurants, with tables too tiny and glasses of wine that are a must, large windows with names engraved in them. Kame wants to refuse though and say he’d rather go to a tiny restaurant in Montmartre, but they’re here and he’d never been in this part of the city. So he agrees and they sit near a window, as far from the door as possible. Mahogany and golden; it is the romantic idea of the city that Kame adores. For Louis, it is grey and stone; just the rainy windy city he grew up in.

Kame tips his glass of wine in accusation. “You’re a cynic,” he deadpans. “Worse than me.”

And maybe he is, Louis isn’t denying it with his smirk.

“There’s a Gallery of Contemporary Art nearby –”

“You like it here,” Kame realizes. Louis looks relaxed, more at home than he’s looked in other parts of the city. “Are we near your house?”

Louis nods. “Yes, we are. Though I didn’t grow up here, but in the most boring part of Paris.”

Kame doesn’t believe him and tells him so.

"So, how is it, the Conservatoire?" he asks, and grins cheekily when Louis points out they have started talking about each other, _finally_. He is startled when the waiter appears though, and honestly has no idea what to order, so he lets Louis do so for them both.

Louis starts talking about his classes and his classmates and the professors. At some point, Kame breathes, says he didn't even finish high school. Louis looks surprised.

"Really?"

Its Kame’s turn to talk about Tokyo then; the band, the agency. Louis makes horrified and amused faces, and Kame finds it kind of refreshing, sharing random funny stories that wouldn't be funny or random with any other person he knows. “I’m sure I’ve told you this already,” he laughs, when Louis is chuckling at Junno’s failed attempt of a road trip, and Louis swears he hasn’t.

“Actually, you never talk about work,” he comments once their food arrives. “I realized all these friends you kept mentioning were your coworkers after _months_.”

Kame finds that little fact about himself interesting.

Louis is telling him about that one time he worked with his dad and Kame can’t even imagine something like that; can’t picture himself sneaking inside his dad’s world. “Must have been fun,” he tries, and pushes yet another slice of tomato to the edge of his plate. Louis had apologized for forgetting, but Kame hasn’t expected him to remember in the first place. “Your parents… being in the same business.”

His face is guarded. “Yes… and no.” Kame laughs at his cryptic answer and Louis gives an apologetic smile to the tablecloth. “It has its pros and cons, like everything.”

After a tiny pause, he continues. “Some people don’t need the spotlight… they care about other things. It’s hard to keep a whole family exposed.”

Kame nods, understands a little. There’s a trolley outside, and an old lady looking distractedly inside the restaurant as she hurries down the street. Their eyes meet, and Kame smiles. Louis grins when he notices, just before the waiter refills their glasses with just water.

“Do you think it’s true? That if we never want anything, we’d never be unhappy?” Kame asks suddenly.

Louis almost chokes in his food. “What’s with the questions?” he asks, a bit amused, and Kame could’ve blushed, but he only shrugs it off, blames it on the city, and the contemplative mood of autumn that has set on it, the one Louis talked about on the first day. Louis thinks. “I… feel like I need that _desire_ to have something to fulfill. Don’t you think?”

“But what if your desires aren’t… like that, but more personal.”

“They’re always personal,” Louis cuts him off, and Kame half sighs, half groans.

“No. You don’t get it,” he broods, and keeps playing with his food.

Louis's hands appear out of nowhere and Kame raises his eyes then, a bit startled. “Is this some kind of self discovery trip?” Louis asks, and he sounds a bit panicky. “Are you planning a life changing event? Are you getting married?”

Kame stares. And then laughs, loudly. Loud enough for Louis to blush uncomfortably and recoil in his seat, throw his napkin at him, even when he ends up smiling because Kame says that no, that he’s just _thinking_.

“Well, stop thinking,” Louis snaps, and Kame smirks.

 

+

 

“Your overexposed and sheltered childhood messed you up,” is the conclusion Louis reaches after lunch, when they’re soaking in the weak sunlight in the Place de la Bastille.

“Hard words, hard words…” Kame mumbles, and Louis snorts.

“Is that even possible?” Kame asks after five minutes, gulping down some water they just bought from a paper stand. This only proves Louis's theory that Kame understands English when he wants to. “To be exposed and sheltered at the same time?”

Louis shrugs. “You were, weren’t you? It is then.”

“We _all_ were,” Kame pauses. “You too.”

Louis laughs. “Oh no, my friend. I was neither.”

Kame stares at his profile; Louis has the smug expression of someone that just won a big debate with a solid argument. So he punches him, and it’s not hard, but Louis exaggerates and tells him he’s a sore loser.

“This is when the mime crawls close and hands you an air flower,” Louis mocks, and Kame chuckles, but he still puts down his camera cautiously after he takes a picture of the people gathered nearby, around a troupe of street performers, secretly wishing the mime would get nowhere near him. Louis rolls his eyes at them, then pats Kame’s knee.

“Let’s get a move on, the Cinematique is only open for so long.”

As they leave, the mime draws a heart on his chest, and smiles.

 

+

 

“Just look,” Louis whispers, leaning closer. The place smells _old_. “He’s not looking at the road. _Again_.”

Kame chuckles. An old couple shushes them. They keep chuckling hushedly.

"Movies and directors can be wise… very wise," Louis says once they’re out, when Kame asks him if he always repeats the lines along with the actors when he goes to the movies. Tells him it's kind of geeky and lame and Kame doubts someone else would actually enjoy it. Louis tells him he makes baseball jokes; he has no right to call him lame.

 

+

  


  
_  
**11th Arrondissement – Oberkampf**  
_  


They go to the Satellit Café after the sun has set. Somehow, they end up talking about one of Louis’s movies, one of the most recent ones, and Kame finds out he sings. Louis tells him it’s nothing like what Kame sings; he knows because he once asked for a DVD and Kame sent him an album, and it took Louis a while to get visuals out of him… and several threats of divulging their emails to the fanclub who offered more. Kame told him it wasn’t like he was embarrassed of his job; he was most certainly not.

“I don’t want to be the idol for you,” he wrote then. Louis had replied, “You’ll never be my idol.” And Kame had laughed _so_ hard; he was sure a lot of what he meant was lost in translation.

"It’s a character that’s not loved,” Louis says, sets down his beer. “He spends his existence without loving."

Kame grimaces. "How sad."

"It is."

He looks around. Wonders why is this even called a café when it looks more like a bar. Or a nightclub.

"Did you sing then? Just for that movie?"

"Yes. Two songs, actually," Louis laughs. "One was cut out."

He promises to take him to this jazz cellar where he knows a person that may let him sing that one song and Kame is excited. Louis says maybe even Kame would be able to sing something, and Kame feels like throwing his beer all over his head.

"You’ve kissed a guy then?" Kame asks, out of the blue, clearly curious even though he tries to sound like he’s not. The way Louis raises an eyebrow, the laughing twinkle in his eyes, confirms he doesn’t quite manage it.

"I have,” he replies. “Only in movies though. Have you?"

Kame smiles to the bottom of his beer. It feels weird, this rougher buzzing so different from the one deferred from wine. He remembers the question though, and slurs an answer.

"I've only been in one movie."

 

+

 

Louis’s place is not what he expects. Not that he’s able to see it very well, and he mostly remembers the elevator, the metal cage around it and how the door opens to both sides, crumpling like an accordion. There’s the dark door and then a long narrow corridor because his place has this L shape that makes no sense whatsoever. It’s big, larger than he expects, but cozy and comfortable and the whole place is red, red wallpapers with intricate patterns and cluttered walls. Only the bathroom has a cold white light, tub pristine with golden legs. Kame steps on some wheeled toy, and almost crashes into one of the tall lamps in the family room.

He has no idea how, after dinner, they end up here. Louis had pulled out a bottle of wine, their heads already buzzing with the beer they’ve had. The scallops were good, and Louis confessed he hadn’t prepared them when they were almost finished. Kame had laughed before dessert came.

Which lead to how they’re lying on the floor, cold tiles against their backs and Kame's hair is a bit damp from when he’d shoved his head under the faucet. Louis tangles his fingers in it, pulls, just enough to make Kame groan and roll over. He glares through half-lidded eyes, but only pokes Louis's nose. It's big and ugly and it reminds Kame of his own. He traces the bump on it, let's his face fall on the inner part of his elbow.

"Kazuya thinks of everything and nothing," Louis mumbles, pokes Kame's forehead with a finger. There are tiny lines on it. "He wonders if the world is becoming a dream..." he says.

And slowly, his lips curl in a soft smile.

"… or if the dream is becoming the world."

It's a dream. Kame is sure of it.

 

+

 

Louis tells him, much later, it’s actually the world.

 

+

  


  
_  
**4th Arrondissement – Dans la Seine**  
_  


The mattress sinks when he rolls over, sighing when the loud click of his camera wakes him up. Louis is grinning at him, elbows on the edge of the bed.

“I’ve always wanted one of these,” he says, and Kame groans and tries to go back to sleep. Then remembers this isn’t even his place, but Louis doesn’t seem to care. He doesn’t seem to have any vestiges of last night either. If he could, Kame would curse his ability to have no hangovers.

Once he gets up, he takes a look around the apartment, and accepts his own washed clothes, the ones he let Louis borrow after that first rain. He uses the guest bathroom, and then steps slowly out into the corridor, staring at the portraits in the wall, the toys scattered around. That one bedroom with the door slightly ajar, all green and with large baby blue clouds pasted near the ceiling. Louis calls for him, and Kame hurries to the kitchen, accepts the cup of coffee with a smile.

Louis’s balcony has a wonderful view of rooftops that are all blue over cream white buildings. For a supposedly bohemian district, it looks extremely peaceful from here.

“Little pleasures,” Louis mutters when he joins him there, in the chilly wind on the balcony. “You know. Like peeling glue from your fingers, or pushing your hand into a sack of grains?”

Like stepping on puddles made of raindrops, or playing ball for hours after sunset. Like falling asleep in a bathtub. “Like cloud watching,” Kame replies, and Louis grins lopsidedly, asks if he wants more coffee.

Later, Louis refuses to put down the camera, but Kame just warns him about the cartridge before they head out.

 

+

 

Louis doesn’t want to walk by that precise place when Kame pulls him towards a narrow set of stairs that leads down to the Seine, but agrees in the end. There’s a group of kids yelling to passerbys. Their tone is not nice.

“Told you not all of Paris is wonderful,” Louis frowns, and refuses to translate neither what the kids yell nor what he replies.

They finally find a decent place, somewhere near a bunch of old people wearing berets and fishing, where Kame can sit beside the river and stretch. Louis crouches, hugs his knees before reclining against one of those stone poles that are scattered all over the city. Kame smiles, even though it's cloudy and cold and humid. He looks happy.

“This is nice,” he murmurs, and only chuckles a little when Louis snorts and says he’s sure Tokyo has better spots to get bored.

There’s a soft mechanic sound to the left. It’s a ferry, arriving no more than a hundred meters away. He immediately leaps up and Louis starts shaking his head no. “We’ve already been on a ferry,” he argues, but Kame says that was at night and it was different. Louis complains because it’s for _tourists_ and he isn’t one, but Kame likes corny tourist stuff and they go in the end, just because it’s Kame’s trip and Louis is his friend.

They go straight to the second level. “See? They’re not all black now”, Kame says as he points at the pictures, but soon nudges him downstairs because it’s closer to the water. It’s soothing, the sound of the tiny waves as the ferry moves forward, and Notre Dame is passing by, right beside them. Kame takes several pictures that look almost the same.

Louis points it out. “Thought you weren’t fond of it.”

It strings a chord; one that makes Kame put down his camera and lean on the ledge. “Well…” he starts, but faces the other bank and his expression is veiled. “Each relationship, when it ends, it hurts. A lot. Isn’t it normal?”

Louis sighs. There is actually sunlight today, and Kame is grateful for that.

“I remember little things,” Louis comments. Kame shares a smile because that much he can appreciate; he gets what Louis is doing. “Same with people. I remember the details, and end up missing more than I should.” He clicks his tongue, points to the Musee D’Orsay that outlines itself on top of the bridge ahead. “I don’t think we truly move on. Ever.”

Kame chuckles, doesn’t agree in words.

“I cherish that though. They’re part of who I am.”

Kame smiles. Nods slowly. “Maybe we are all made of past loves,” he comments offhandedly.

“Past moments, not just love. What’s with you and love?”

Kame laughs distractedly. They pass under a huge bridge and the sun is hidden; it’s very, very dark when it happens, and the shadows cast on Louis’s face makes it more somber than it is. Then they’re out and the sun shines bright, brighter than it has been in all the time he’s been in this place. There are trees behind Kame, and water and sky and more bricked walls.

“Must be the city,” Kame mumbles, defensively, and turns around. "Isn't it strange? How people never make a whole. We’re never _one_."

“Are you still looking for the one?”

Kame sighs, fiddles with his camera. “Is Valeria the one?”

Louis breathes. There’s another bridge ahead. Kame is staring at Louis though, intently; how he doesn’t smile immediately but his eyes do, and the slow way the corners of his lips follow.

“Yeah. Yes. She is.”

Kame is truly happy for him.

 

+

  


  
_  
**7th Arrondissement – Tour Eiffel**  
_  


Louis groans again, saying they should’ve come at another time. “But I want to see the lights,” Kame explains, like Louis is insane for even proposing going to the Eiffel tower during daylight.

There are tourists, tons of them, and it’s uncomfortable. Kame is all squeezed against Louis and the metal railings and they both chuckle when it gives a little jump and an old lady apologizes profusely in Portuguese for squeezing their breathe out. The wind is crazy and Louis tells Kame it’ll probably rain, so they rush to the first spot they can and take as many pictures as they manage. Les Champs-Elysees look especially amazing, all lit up and wide open, while the rest of Paris spreads around the tower in a gorgeous highlighted puzzle.

Louis loses Kame somewhere on the second stop, just before they go up to the last story of the tower. He finds him after 15 minutes of frenzied searching, and wants to punch him when Kame turns around with a smile, apparently unaware of Louis’s absence all this time.

“Sorry, was hungry and… oh-” he stops, and motions to a woman beside him, who is also smiling. Louis sees the twin cheese-filled paninis in their hands and wants to laugh. “This is Emanuelle, she knows some Japanese.”

Of course she does, Louis thinks. He is polite and takes pictures of them against the city before the wind grows stronger, and somehow they lose Emanuelle on the way out, in the middle of the mob of tourists and vendors and tour guides with improvised flags. Kame turns and tugs on his sleeve, says they should search for her, but Louis pulls him until they’re walking down and away from the tower.

“She was nice,” Kame murmurs, standing awkwardly in front of Louis, who has crouched in front of him to get a picture of Kame with the tower in the back.

“I’m sure she was,” Louis says condescendingly, and Kame glares.

They take several shots, but Kame is always a black splotch in front of the lights of the Eiffel Tower.

 

+

 

“Can you hear it?” Louis asks as he walks on the other side of the bridge, and Kame keeps zigzagging around the columns on his side of it. Louis has his eyes closed when Kame looks at him. Secretly, Kame wants him to trip.

“Can you?”

There is only the soft murmur of the river below their feet, and wheels against the pavement. The soft swoosh of their hands when they use the columns as their axis and swing their way inside the zigzag. Kame’s light chuckles that had fallen silent some steps behind, when Louis’s story ended and the silence began.

Louis crosses all the way to his side of the columns. “Listen,” he murmurs, and no sooner than that, there’s an air trumpet in his hands, and he’s making music out of thin air. Kame chuckles, laughs, and they zigzag only in Kame’s side of the bridge now because otherwise he wouldn’t listen to the trumpet.

“Barbieri's,” he yells, when Kame finds himself in the middle of the bridge. There’s a long shiny path ahead of him, bright yellow with that green hue the Place des Victoires had before, all the way till the other end, which isn’t that far anymore. “It’s Barbieri’s.”

“Is that from a movie too?”

They leave the Bir-Hakeim Bridge behind, and pass by the Musee du vin; Kame checks their schedule, just because, but Louis says he should really stop relating Paris with wine and dodges before Kame even makes a move. That’s when Louis looks back and huffs. “We’re actually further from your hotel,” he says. Kame can feel his legs giving away.

“Let’s take a cab.”

There’s a Chinese movie playing when they turn on the TV, but it has been dubbed and all the characters speak an odd detached English that doesn’t really suit them. Kame has seen the end of it, he remembers because he had been dozing off after filming. Louis has seen the beginning on some flight between Dublin and Berlin, and that’s how he remembers the name of it. It never made much sense before for neither of them.

They watch it together, exhausted. It’s actually a good movie.

 

+  


  


  


  
_  
**14th Arrondissement – Montparnasse, Bienvenüe Station**  
_  


“Let’s take pictures of the place where Sartre is buried,” Louis had said excitedly earlier, on their way to Montparnasse to have breakfast.

Kame had made a face. “I’m not a fan of tombs, to be honest,” and that was it for their excursion to the cemetery. However, he’d made it very clear he wanted to visit that other one, Père Lachaise, later, and Louis tells him he made a lot of research for a flash trip.

“Not only for the flash trip,” Kame answers, and they talk about Les Marais and how Kame has searched for apartments there, only they’re expensive for just one or two weeks a year, and that he doesn’t want to rent them in the same way he’d be able to rent a hotel room. Louis tells him his plan makes no sense either way.

They jump in the metro and sit by the door. Kame is still talking about this one studio he found, place cluttered and paper walls with Victorian designs, ridiculously long windows that frame the Eiffel tower. “But it also has a tiny bathroom,” he complains, and Louis smiles endearingly, let’s him rest against him because the carriage is packed. "Is it really too insane?" Kame mutters.

“Depends on why you want a place here for.”

Kame hums.

“It all really depends, you know,” Louis continues once they’ve reached their destination, as they fight the people out of the metro in a particularly unpleasant station. It follows them out in the streets, as they rush out and into a large group of a tourist looking crowd. “An apartment for a couple of weeks sounds like a waste of money,” Louis comments.

Kame laughs, and Louis shrugs his shoulders because he is making sense and Kame is not.

“I still think you should make the trips though,” he has to yell above a car honking and is stopped by Kame when he’s almost run over by a bicycle. He curses, and tidies his coat. “Or just crash at my place.”

“Sure,” Kame laughs, following him. “How did you know I like babysitting?”

Louis glares, but they’re in Montmartre now and Kame stops, breathes in, and grins.

 

+

  


  


  
_  
**18th Arrondissement – Montmartre**  
_  


The road is so narrow there is only space for one car to go up or down. Streets like these require cars to be really tiny to fit the spaces, and thus the ridiculously compact ones Kame has seen. There are short stone pillars coming out of the padded brick road with one meter of separation between them, and Kame zigzags all the way up the road. There are five or four story buildings; they cover almost an entire block each. They are _huge_.

“I love Montmartre,” Kame mutters.

“You love all of Paris,” Louis accuses, but he’s still grinning when Kame touches the walls, says he loves the feeling of the rough surface against his skin. “Why?”

Kame shrugs his shoulders because Louis sounds really intrigued and he has no honest answer. He just feels like a kid in a toy store, snaps a picture of the long way in front of them, the one they’re climbing up, the hilltop church of Sacre Coeur standing tall behind trees and buildings.

“What is it about this city, I wonder,” Kame mumbles back, but he’s not paying attention. There is a particular entryway he is looking at until he notices it sells crystal trinkets. Louis tugs on his sleeve, and reminds him of the flea market.

 

+

  


  
_  
**18th Arrondissement – Sacre Coeur**  
_  


“Paris makes me feel sad and happy at the same time. But not… _sad_ , just…” Kame elaborates when they reach the flea market after they decline several artists offering to make their portraits. He is standing in front of a stall, and Louis gets closer, grabs the clock he’s watching to check it out as well. Kame keeps talking as they both examine the antique. “Like everything is now, and it will end.”

Louis raises an eyebrow, and Kame moves on. There’s another stall, filled with fabrics and cushions that look more Asian than French. A set of tea calls his attention; the kettle is large and it looks like old, old china. The lady explains to Louis it’s an antique, apparently valuable.

“Something about a noble house,” Louis translates, and Kame picks up a cup. He _really_ likes it.

“It makes me think,” he continues, and Louis sighs. They both nod to the old lady and put the teacups back in the tray. There’s a stall with old-fashioned toys a couple steps ahead. “Like nostalgia?”

Louis goes, “Ah,” and hands him a bag. It’s actually very cheap, and the vendor swears it’s made of leather. Kame doesn’t like it enough, and Louis buys it instead. “That’s unfair,” he glares later, when Louis is changing bags as Kame waits for him.

He really wants to explain though, so he continues, even if he has to explain to Louis what is he talking about when he does. “There’s a name for that in Japanese,” he adds as they move on to a stall full of bracelets and key chains.

“There’s one in French too,” Louis says with a smirk, and hands Kame a necklace he may like. “ _Love_.”

Kame chuckles. He buys several things in that stall, including five key chains with miniatures of the Eiffel Tower, the Arc du Triumph and Notre Dame. Louis complains, says he should get at least a badly done imitation of a Renoir, or a cheap reproduction of Notre Dame in clay. A bandana.

“Actually…” and Kame returns, buys a bandana he knows Koki would appreciate. He gets a buildable Eiffel Tower for Junno, a bow tie for Nakamaru (and a replica of an antique pistol he’ll give him after the joke); he gets Ueda a couple of dog toys. He thinks about getting something for Pi too, and Jin, and… he ends up buying almost a dozen of key chains with tiny coppery monuments attached to them, just in case.

“I already bought them things,” he answers when Louis asks about his brothers. Then adds, “and if I don’t get the guys _something_ , they’ll pester me for days.”

Louis isn’t surprised. On a certain level, he feels like he knows them already.

“I also like London, just so you know,” Kame adds later, because Paris is not the only city he can fall in love with. He says so when sunset is upon them and Kame finally concedes they’ll never manage to check all of this market in a day. Louis doesn’t quite believe him. “Those two week trips should be divided, one here and one in England. There’s this -?”

“Train. Yes.”

Kame purses his lips. And clicks his fingers.

 

+

 

“I bet you planned this,” Louis accuses, when they’re overlooking the city from the hilltop. He eyes the bags in Kame’s hands, full of trinkets and some clothes and bottles of wine. Kame swears he knew nothing about the Vendanges de Montmartre, but he still enjoyed with a secret smile the scenery and ambience of the festival like he should, and bought even more wine to take home with him.

The view from the church of Sacre Coeur is breathtaking at night, and Kame says he’s only been here by day before. He breathes in, deeply, and settles against one of the walls. The place is crowded with visitors, and there is a couple making out not so far from where they’re sitting. Louis chuckles, and Kame only smiles aghast. His legs are dangling from the edge of the stonewall they’re sitting on.

“Godard,” Louis says out of the blue. Kame turns, questioning, because he has no idea what Louis is talking about. “You once asked who my favorite director was. It’s Godard, predictable and cliché.”

Kame smirks. “This is the first time you are.”

“Taking that as a compliment.”

They pass a bottle of water, and Louis grunts because he is also tired from all the walking they’ve done. “I wish you liked motorized transportation some more,” he groans, and Kame tells him it’d be different if he had a _car_ they could use and not one in the repair shop, but it’s all playful mocking. Kame is grateful, his expression says as much.

“I always wanted to run through the Louvre, you know?” Louis adds, and it’s already very dark, black and not purple anymore. Kame frowns, doesn’t _know_. But he believes it’s like how he always wanted to play in Tokyo Dome in a Giants uniform, hear the crowd yelling for his home run. “That’s part of why I played Theo.”

Kame nods. He thinks about his sportscaster’s job. He _understands_.

“Want to see something?” Louis asks as they go down the steps of the hill, the funicular slowly moving a bunch of people upwards. “It’s a bit of a detour.”

Kame shrugs. “Our route today made no sense anyway,” he answers, and lets Louis guide him to another square in Montmartre, one that’s almost hidden and has a stone wall on the very back of it, with a dark metallic fence on top of it and trees outlined on the street going up the hill. He follows him to this wall; it has a sculpture of a man getting out of it, walking _through_ it, darker against the rest of it. This is probably the only square in the middle of the festival that is not crowded, and only a young woman with a little boy are sitting nearby as she ties his shoestrings.

“My dad used to bring me here as a kid,” Louis says in a hushed tone, as if it’s a secret. It certainly feels like it; the loud noise of Montmartre has stayed outside. “He said, one day, I’d be able to walk through any wall. Just like him.”

He laughs, as if it’s silly. Kame doesn’t think so; he just stares at it for a while, and it’s nice, sharing those memories. He has his own too.

“Still one of my favorite places,” he adds with a sigh, but Kame is thinking of the rundown baseball field near his house, and how Yuichiro would agree to practice with him there, and then Koji, until Yuya was asking _him_ to go there.

Louis turns, laughs a little embarrassed. “Well, it’s not much of a touristic attraction, but –”

“No,” Kame says. “I like it here. It’s peaceful.”

And it is.

 

+

 

Louis reads his French copy of Romeo and Juliet out loud, just a part of it; his voice gets excited and loud, and Kame can’t understand a word of it. Only that Romeo has probably killed himself already, and Juliet isn't dead, just sleeping, and it makes him a bit sad, that idea. And horribly frustrated.

"If you spoke a Latin language, it'd be easier," Louis complains when he closes the book and Kame jumps, startled at the sudden halt in the flow of words. He laughs though, gets comfortable in the bed and asks Louis to stop taking photos of him here unless he wants Valeria to think he’s having some affair while she’s away.

Louis laughs, but puts down the camera anyway. “That’s my sister in law,” he says, pointing to the speakers.

Kame arches an eyebrow. “Wasn’t she…?”

“Yes,” Louis replies, stretched on the chaise longue on the other side of the guest room. “I guess it runs in the family.”

Louis then tells him about Valeria.

Kame tells him about Jin. And Ryuu. And Ran, which generates a hilarious confusion until Kame says that no, he isn’t talking about his dog. He tells him how they all were older than him, some more than others. How he remembers the way they smelled just after taking a shower; the way he felt when their hands brushed. How he can’t recall their favorite color or food or even their birthdays, but the way they made him feel after a kiss is clearly imprinted on his mind.

He tells him about Kyoko too.

"What is it about us," Louis mumbles, throws the butt of his cigarette out the balcony. He moved there at some point, but Kame isn’t sure when. He’s been watching the ceiling, listening to the music and his own voice speaking. It bumps on the railing, almost doesn't go out. He wonders if Valeria gets mad at Louis for leaving cigarette butts inside the house or if Louis doesn’t smoke with the child around.

He shrugs, fills his glass and joins him in the balcony, plops onto the ottoman beside Louis. They share a cigarette. The weather is mild enough to not freeze them under the robes, despite how fluffy they are. It’s almost like back home, only Kame would be wearing a yukata even if it’s not summer.

Louis circles the rim of his glass with a finger, slowly, and it makes a deep echoing sound before he stops to drink.

"Do you love her?" Kame asks, and notices maybe he shouldn't have. Louis smiles, throws his head back. When he turns to Kame, his eyes are open and bright.

"Did you?"

Kame half smirks.

 

+

  


  
_  
**10th and 20th Arrondissement – From Père Lachaise down the Canal Saint-Martin**  
_  


Louis is interested in his habit of wearing yukatas after he said they were like lighter robes, and Kame promises he’ll send him one when he gets home. They’re both wearing fluffy bathrobes and the heat is on, so when Louis claims it's too hot and prances around with half of it tied around his waist, Kame says he should just lower the temperature instead. He soon finds himself cooking breakfast, the other lounging nearby with half a robe off and the other half tucked between his legs. It looks like a huge diaper, only it's navy blue and cotton soft.

"Pass me the coffee, will you?" he mumbles, toes poking Kame's back for attention.

Kame glares. “I’m your guest,” he complains, but passes him a cup of black coffee anyway.

The place has an obvious female presence lingering, Kame decides, when he joins Louis in the bathroom after they realize there’s something wrong with the water in the guests’ room. It surprises him he hasn’t noticed it before. The sole fact Louis has no idea what half of the bottles are make it obvious how he probably grabs the one he’s most used to and Valeria is the one that makes use of the rest of them.

“Who cares,” Louis huffs as he puts some shaving cream on. Kame chuckles and enjoys, half lying with his toes tipping out of the surface. He wants to knock over the stupid turtle they bought in the flea market yesterday; Louis had thought it amusing as a souvenir of Kame’s trip.

Truth is, he has missed soaking in the water like this.

“Will you go back to Zurich at the end of the month?” Louis asks, drying his face now that he’s finished shaving.

Kame scrunches up his nose. “Doubt it,” he says. He actually doubts it, KAT-TUN is planning concerts; this sudden time off was probably just a way for them to recharge batteries before they began some intense crazy schedule. “But I’ll try.”

Louis nods. “I’ll be going, so…” and Kame smiles, but he really doubts he’ll make it.

Beside the long narrow white door, with blurry glass from the waist up, some towels are hanging. They have red embroidery on the edges, and Louis embarrassedly admits they were a present from Valeria’s mom. Kame laughs, but shuts up when he gets soap in his eyes. The tiles are different shades of beige, but everything else is white. Not pristine and modern though, not like Kame’s own bathroom; just white.

Kame decides to get out, even if he doesn’t want to, and properly dry his hair for once. He props himself on top of the white-painted wooden banister, only after Louis gets in the tub and assures him it’s fine to just stay because there’s no water in the other one to shave.

“Fine,” Kame shrugs, and Louis leaves him be.

He’s still soaking when Kame opens the large window on his right, frame also painted white. “You have a wonderful view from here,” he comments, waves to the lady one floor below them, who looks a little scandalized by his sitting there in just a towel.

“That’s Mrs. Villete, she’s seen more than she should have already,” Louis tells him; laughter threads through his words, and Kame pretends it doesn’t ring low in his belly. He props his legs up and lights a cigarette; throws the ashes on the ashtray on the windowsill, and wonders if Louis was the one who put it there.

A splash of water on the floor startles him. Louis is looking at him, staring, and Kame wonders if it’s not allowed to smoke in the bathroom, but Louis only seems to be scrutinizing him. He squints his eyes a little, tells him he looks like he carries the weight of the world on his shoulders.

"Funny," Kame replies, ruffles his own hair. This isn’t brand new information. "You're not the first one to tell me so."

Louis arches an eyebrow.

"But that was years ago." Louis looks quite startled. Kame isn’t as surprised as he should be; he blames it on still having his toes all wrinkled and the slightly damp state of his skin. He feels numb. "They say I don't anymore."

Louis snorts as he wraps a towel around his waist. He asks with badly concealed surprise. "It used to be worse?"

Kame grins.

"You have no idea."

 

+

 

_This_ cemetery is gorgeous, stairs and trees and bricked walls everywhere. They walk through a tunnel made of tree branches, metallic fences and railings running parallel on their sides. It’s like a maze, full of mausoleums with strong pillars and wonderfully carved entryways. “Oscar Wilde,” Louis points as they pass the not so gorgeous place he’s buried at. Kame has heard of him, he would’ve expected something else.

“He wasn’t French,” Louis says, as if that explains anything, and keeps talking, but Kame isn’t paying attention. He traces the stone with his fingers, where the graffiti and lipstick seems to be fading only to be replaced by new ones, until Louis stops talking and joins him, very close.

“What is it?”

“Can you imagine this?” Kame asks. Turns to him. “This… after life devotion?”

“Full of tourists?” Louis replies, with a bit of disdain. “Sounds like hell.”

Kame doesn’t quite believe so.

They leave Père Lachaise behind after Kame has had enough proof that he’d never be able to take pictures of every single mausoleum he considers worthy of a still print. They get out, walk down the Canal St. Martin, where they find some kids throwing rocks into the water. This Kame saw in a movie, but he doesn’t say anything because Louis clearly thinks they’re tourists and he doesn’t seem to like them much. He just snaps some pictures.

They walk down several roads, and end up somewhere that makes Louis smile. Kame looks up, to the top of the buildings; they have a blue shade that looks fabulous against the gray sky of the morning.

“I could stay here forever,” Louis murmurs, standing in the middle of the square. Kame is restless though, he wants to move, _needs_ to keep moving because his flight is tomorrow and he only has one more day ahead and –

Louis holds him in place. “Just a bit longer,” he asks. “Do you feel the Earth move?”

Kame huffs because he can’t believe he’s standing there with so many museums to visit and photos to take and food to eat and more and _more_ stairs to go up and down, up and down, until– Just then. He feels it.

“ _Oh_.”

He lets out a tiny gasp and feels Louis smirking beside him, outlined against the bright green parasol of the kiosk behind, head slightly bent back.

“Wonderful, isn’t it?” Louis whispers, leaning closer, just a bit, as subtle as the upward curl of the corners of Kame’s lips.

Kame exhales. He turns; his eyes are shining.

“It is.”

_Paris is._

 

+

  


  
_  
**18th Arrondissement – Le Caveau de la Huchette**  
_  


There are sex shops and hotels everywhere, prostitutes standing in the doors, all covered in sequins in a way that morbidly reminds him of JE. Kame snorts; that is _not_ a good analogy. Louis mirrors his thoughts and says he shouldn’t associate his line of work with this particular area of Pigalle; it says a lot. Kame laughs, and pretends it doesn’t really say anything.

“Let’s go to that jazz place already,” Kame says when they’re on the other side of the street of the Moulin Rouge, safely away from the long line of tourists waiting to enter. “I’m leaving tomorrow, come on,” he presses on when Louis is about to say no, that they can keep walking and it’s early, but he sighs and ends up agreeing anyway since they’re already out and it’s night and Kame really needs to sit down.

Turns out Louis _can_ sing. There is something about his voice though, utterly melancholic, that makes Kame think of rainy days and fluffy long scarves. It may be the French words, the slow ballad, the way he elongates and slurs the r's in his throat, or the way his hair falls on his eyes, making them even darker. It makes Kame think of moonlight filtering between his curtains, falling on heads with bleached orange hair, and cold, cold toes poking his calves in the futon.

Louis closes his eyes and his white worn out t-shirt is far too familiar, too much like the fingers circling on his wrist, the ghost of lips on his bare shoulders; the warm embrace circling his waist and how later he'd step on tiny puddles formed in the street with the slight drizzle of the beginning of winter. It reminds Kame of train rides and shared takoyaki and rainy, rainy days with gloved hands and shared umbrellas.

Louis closes his hand on his shoulder when he sits beside him. "Are you alright?" he asks, and pushes his beer closer.

Kame chuckles, says he is.

“This place is nice,” he murmurs, eyeing the small stage, now taken by a band with large saxes and a pianist. Louis is still looking at him, pondering something, Kame isn’t sure what, until he clasps his hand on his shoulder and gulps down the last of his and Kame’s beer.

“Come. I know what you need in your last night.”

 

+

 

“You know, I’m from Japan,” Kame half yells half slurs.

This new place had blasting brash music and people all over, dancing and drinking, and Kame had said it was all right to go back to the jazz cellar, but Louis had refused. “Think of it as compensation for Emanuelle!” he yells above the gaudy bass, and Kame narrows his eyes before he lets it go. The night is a blur of basically red and yellow and loud, loud music he isn’t used to. He walks inside that blur, moves soundlessly in that mess of people, and feels Louis nearby, shoving something in his hand whenever it’s empty.

That is how he finds himself yelling, “You know, I’m from Japan,” above the music. And this girl, a longhaired brunette, grins broadly at him and pulls him closer by the shirt. She says she doesn’t speak English well. Kame thinks that’s perfect.

Her name is Iris. Or so Kame gets from the scrawled paper he finds in his pants when he crashes in bed and Louis places a glass of water on the bedside table.

 

+

  


  
_  
**5th Arrondissement – Hotel Sorbonne**  
_  


“I can’t believe you did that.”

“I did nothing.”

Kame groans, and rolls in the bed. He’d already taken a bath, and didn’t care he woke Louis up when he stomped inside his bathroom. The other had leaned on the doorframe, still a bit sleepy, and Kame had warned him to keep all mocking and teasing for himself. Louis raised his hands in self defense, and reappeared later with a peace offering in the form of coffee and French toast, when Kame was already dressed and still with a headache.

Louis spots the crumpled paper; Kame’s reflexes are still slow.

“So… will you call _Iris_?”

Kame glares, though it’s not very intimidating above the rim of his mug of coffee.

“You _had_ fun,” Louis tries, and sits beside the bed on the floor, stealing toast from Kame’s plate.

_That_ he can’t deny. “Well, maybe I will. In a year, when I’m back?” he asks; sarcasm drips with mockery.

Louis laughs softly. “We should get your things. What time does your plane leave?”

They make it to Kame’s hotel after a while, even when Kame would’ve rather stayed in Louis’s place for longer. He makes sure to leave the bed made when he picks himself up from it, and helps him do the dishes, which aren’t many, but they’re there. Louis gets his clothes from the washing machine, and Kame isn’t sure how many nights he spent here and how many in his hotel room.

On the way there, Kame takes pictures from the cab, of places they could never go to and random streets he likes. They stop at one of the bookstores that had called Kame’s attention the first day, and he gets a couple of old books, one very large one for a coffee table he doesn’t have yet. When they finally arrive at the hotel, eye bags under his eyes and Louis looking as tired as he was, Kame can only smile charmingly at the receptionist and ask for his key.

Once inside, Louis throws himself onto his bed, turns on the TV as Kame packs. Which, actually, takes him only 15 minutes.

"A minute of silence for your leaving?” Louis asks, but Kame glares mockingly upset. “They never last a minute, so it won’t be that long.”

He kicks his suitcase aside when he joins him on the large mattress. He’ll miss this, a little.

“I’d forgotten how it was to go out with people my age.”

Louis laughs. “I’m actually older.”

A three-year difference means no difference for Kame, and he lets it show. He eyes the clock, and notices he doesn’t have much time before he has to run to the airport. The cab would be here soon; he would’ve liked to at least be able to have lunch again, maybe in that fancy restaurant near the Place de la Bastille.

“Sing a song,” he requests, not sure where it comes from. “A goodbye song.”

Louis laughs, sharp, as if Kame is insane, but Kame shrugs and tells him it was just a surprise when he listened to him last night. Louis sings with his French mood even if the song is in English, with that beat of old cafés and roads, and Kame closes his eyes. It’s a song he’s heard, one he can also sing along to, and Louis stutters but doesn’t stop when Kame mumbles the lyrics under his breath.

When they stop, Louis is looking at him, surprised.

“Surprise me some more?” he asks, and Kame rolls out of the bed, fumbles with Louis’s ipod for a bit. The first strings strike home, and he grins; the notes of a piano bump against the walls and Nina Simone’s rough voice floats above them.

“How do you know this song?” Louis sounds now really surprised, following Kame with his eyes when he jumps on the bed again.

Kame wants to ask why he wouldn’t be allowed to know, just to be annoying. “Dated someone who did,” he answers instead, because it’s the truth. “Even after the break up, I didn’t stop listening to her.”

Louis nods. “Some things stay, huh.”

“We’re on good terms,” Kame whispers, smiling a little.

He receives a snort.

“Break ups are never in good terms.”

Kame smiles. “Some are.”

He mouths the scarce lyrics while Louis taps on his thigh, as it gets high on the chorus and dies down just when the phone rings. He sighs, and Louis resignedly shrugs his shoulders, passes him the handset. It’s the reception. Kame’s cab has arrived.

 

+

 

He opens the envelope with a sudden rush of excitement coursing through him, and Nakamaru’s voice on the phone that sits between his ear and shoulder stops being a priority. Nakamaru is still talking when he pulls out the contents, and laughs.

“Kame?” Nakamaru asks on the other side of the line. “Is everything alright?”

Kame grins, tucks the polaroid inside his pocket. He plops down on his couch, pulls the laptop from the floor and gets online.

“Yes,” he answers, and taps a finger, lets the music start running where it’d stop. It’s Carla Bruni’s new album.

“Everything is perfect.”  


  


  
**Fin**  


**Author's Note:**

> For [Louis Garrel](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0308039/) information.


End file.
